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DeLay indicted on new charges

Posted on: Monday, 3 October 2005, 21:58 CDT

By Hilary Hylton

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas grand jury on Monday indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on two new felony charges including money laundering, following a conspiracy indictment last week which forced him to step aside as the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The new indictment accuses DeLay of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering in a campaign finance scheme and greatly raises the legal stakes for the once-powerful Texan because it includes a potential punishment of life in prison if convicted.

The Travis County, Texas, grand jury in Austin handed up the indictments shortly after DeLay's lawyers sought to dismiss last week's charge, which carried a maximum sentence of two years, on a legal technicality.

The Austin American-Statesman said prosecutors sought the new charges because of concern the original one would be thrown out, but Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle could not be reached for comment.

DeLay denounced the latest action as an "abomination of justice."

"Ronnie Earle has stooped to a new low with his brand of prosecutorial abuse," he said in a statement.

The charges accuse DeLay of conspiring with associates John Colyandro and Jim Ellis to launder $190,000 in corporate contributions to his Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee, or TRMPAC, through the Republican National Committee for distribution to candidates for the Texas Legislature in 2002.

Texas law forbids the use of corporate money in political campaigns.

TRMPAC's efforts contributed to Republicans taking control of the Texas Legislature for the first time since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and led to a controversial remapping of congressional districts that increased the number of Republicans from Texas in the U.S. House.

DeLay, who represents a Houston area district, had been House majority leader from 2002 until last week's indictment.

Because of House Republican rules, he quit the leadership post, where he had played a key role in passing President George W. Bush's agenda including tax cuts and a prescription drug benefit for older Americans. He was able to keep his congressional seat.

NO RULING ON DISMISSAL

Throughout Earle's three-year-long investigation into TRMPAC, DeLay has accused him of being a partisan Democrat conducting a political witch hunt to get revenge for the congressional redistricting.

"He is trying to pull the legal equivalent of a 'do-over' since he knows very well that the charges he brought against me last week are totally manufactured and illegitimate. This is an abomination of justice," DeLay said.

His legal team's dismissal motion to state District Judge Bob Perkins in Austin argued that the original conspiracy charge did not apply to Texas elections until September 2003. Perkins is on vacation, so there has been no ruling.

DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin accused prosecutors of rushing to cook up new charges just so DeLay could not return to his leadership position in the House.

"If this (new indictment) doesn't prove that the motivation behind this indictment is political, then I don't know what it is," DeGuerin said in a news conference in Houston.

DeLay has said his resignation was temporary and that he will continue to exert influence in the House through close ties with Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois. Some moderate Republicans, however, have cast him as a possible liability for the party.

Apart from the TRMPAC investigation, DeLay has been under fire the past year for ethics problems involving fund-raising, foreign travels and his dealings with lobbyists.

Monday's indictments were the latest in a growing number to come out of Earle's TRMPAC investigation.

Colyandro, Ellis and Warren Robold were indicted last year and are awaiting trial. They have been charged with accepting a total of $600,000 in illegal corporate contributions.

TRMPAC and lobby group Texas Association of Business were indicted on charges of illegally funneling corporate donations into the Texas campaigns. Eight corporations also were indicted for their part in the finance schemes.

Source: REUTERS

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